Lots of problems haunt my life. I fear perishing in the depths, I look for the exit and I can't find it. And the more I try to get out, the more I feel my body descends to that place that takes me away from reality.

Water surrounds me wherever I look, the voice of the ocean and its immensity calls me to rest at the bottom of its existence. Submerged, forgotten and abandoned; it is there, in that moment and in that place that I can find peace. The water that once frightened me has become my home and tranquility.

Details

Tools:

Gaomon S620
Photoshop
Brushes courtesy of Imad Awan: Download here

-Step 1:

I sketched the idea that was in my head, first with a quick sketch to establish the pose of the character and in a new layer I was defining the details and establishing better the pose and anatomy (I had to take some pictures of myself for reference).

-Step 2:

Buuuut, I didn't feel confident with the head I had sketched, so I tried something new and at once I was giving volume to the illustration with grays. Then, in a new layer set to "color" I proceeded to color the illustration and give more details to the face, but again I felt that something was wrong, this is one of the problems of not using 100% specific references, but I am challenging myself not to make illustrations based on any specific reference, but to be more dynamic and express what is in my head.

-Step 3:

And again I felt that this new face was not well done, so I went back to my sketch, everything I had done so far I blended in one layer and blurred it, so at least I had a color palette to guide me.

My purpose with the face was to capture an expression of fear and anger, inspired by Alexandre Cabanel's Fallen Angel, but it was really difficult to condense both emotions.

-Step 4:

Another obstacle to capture what I wanted was in the water, it was supposed to be a flipped landscape, so I flipped the canvas vertically and painted it, in that position it looked beautiful, but once I returned to the original position, I saw how it lost that sense of depth, in fact now that I see it as I write this, maybe what was missing was a little more brightness in the water.

-Step 5:

The final touches were based on the correction of colors, as I felt them very distant from each other, they generated contrast, yeah, but there was no harmony between them, nor a clear color temperature, so I resorted to the Camera Raw filter, with which I corrected the range of colors, but not abruptly, but creating layer masks and with them gently applying each of the new changes, as in one of my previous works, the Camera Raw filter considerably lowered the quality of my image, so it is something you should keep in mind if you ever want to apply it.